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Blogs and Barcodes – The Online Blurs into
the Offline World
By Ross Dunn, Founder/CEO, StepForth Placement Inc.
February 20 2006
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Blogs have become a bastion of free speech on the web – where anyone
can start their own personal commentary on any topic for free. Businesses
use blogs to post their latest news, celebrities make fans salivate as
they update their blogs with news about their day, and they even demonstrated
the power to keep online vendors in line (Google
bombing). The fact is,
blogs have become massively popular and it seems the sky is the limit
for
this online phenomenon. But that is not the end of the story, I wrote
this article to tell you how blogs are soon going to influence buyers of
your
products in the offline world.
Yes you read that correctly; ‘the offline world.’ A new technology
has been slated to emerge within the next 2 years that will blur the lines
between the web and the real world and make blogging and in-turn SEO even
more of a necessity for retailers. The key to this new world will be the
popular cell phone and the emergence of barcode search technology.
Barcodes other wise known as UPC (Universal Product Code) are present on
the packaging of every consumer product you find in your local retail store.
These codes are often shown in a format of closely spaced vertical lines
which when scanned by the store’s barcode reader will describe the
product and the price. These barcodes were put in place to make monitoring
and pricing inventory simpler for retailers. Unbeknownst to the retailers,
such technology will soon be used to allow you, the consumer, to not only
find the best price for a particular product but to check on consumer opinions
of the product. Toshiba recently announced that as early as April 2007 this
barcode technology will be available to consumers on its latest cell phone
offering.
How this system works is best described by example. While visiting your
local electronics warehouse you walk over to a new plasma television and
your mouth impulsively begins to water as you watch the HD television feed
gloriously swim across the screen. Next you look at the price and wonder
just how much you could get for one of your limbs. Pricing aside, let’s
assume you can afford the TV and you wonder how this TV stacks up against
the plethora of similar Plasma TV’s displayed nearby. To answer your
question you casually take out your camera-enabled cell phone and snap a
shot of the barcode located below the TV. Within a few moments your cell
phone screen displays a menu detailing an average consumer ranking of this
TV as well as the best price found within your area. Now, armed with this
invaluable data you can either move onto another TV that fits your needs
or get the best price possible. Where does all of this information come
from? Blogs of course; upon request of your barcode inquiry Toshiba’s
servers will pole up to 100 blogs known to have information on the TV and
provide you with an average rating based on the opinions found.
This concept has been around for a while but to my knowledge Toshiba is
the first to announce a rollout with enough clout suitable to note. Once
this technology has taken flight, and I have little doubt it will in one
form or another, I anticipate there will be a serious need for a single
entity to provide a spam-controlled, un-biased arena for search. Here enters
the king of search; Google. Google already has the database and the technology
to weed out a vast amount of spam and it would have everything to gain by
including a search technology for barcode surfers. All of a sudden, this
new technology will gain a legitimacy of epic proportions and consumers
would be able to poll millions of blogs versus the mere 100 that Toshiba’s
first generation will be capable of. A new generation of vendor accountability
will be here and the consumer will be more powerful than ever before. Sound
grandiose? Sure, I admit that I am excited, but the implications of this
technology are undeniable; blogs and the rest of the online world will play
a far larger role over which products are bought in the local store.
With the emergence of this technology every vendor with an inch of respect
for the Internet will have to create their own review blog where they will
need to provide incentives for consumers to post product/service reviews.
That’s right, not only will vendors have to provide a better product
but they will need to ask consumers to help them promote it. After all,
they will have to stand out from the rest of the vendors asking for the
same favour! It will also be important for vendors to ensure that their
review blog is optimized for the search engines so that home surfers can
find their review sites and to ensure that Google indexes it regularly.
All-in-all I think this upcoming technology offers a wonder of positive
possibilities; responsible product manufacturing, fiercely competitive pricing,
further credibility for the Internet, and a boom in online investment. Another
element which shouldn’t be missed is the further levelling of the
online playing field; the best products, not necessarily the biggest vendors
will have a chance at a large share of the consumer pie. You just have to
love the free spirit of the ‘Net!
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